


Silvitni (Dead Calm)

by behzaintfunny



Series: Land of Snow and Sorrow [2]
Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: (but just mild nothing too bad), Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Gore, Hair Washing, I promise one day I will do David Villa justice, M/M, Missing Scene, Multi, Past Character Death, Psychological Trauma, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-09-29 22:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20443427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/behzaintfunny/pseuds/behzaintfunny
Summary: "At his side, Silva, bathed in the soft tones of the earliest rays of sunshine, sleeping soundly. Dreaming, perhaps, of a different life, or a different death."Fernando washes Silva's hair. Silva gets emotional remembering the things that used to be.





	Silvitni (Dead Calm)

**Author's Note:**

> (Ah shit, here we go again...)
> 
> Silvitni is set right after Silva's arrival in Daniel's village, after Fernando had found him on the beach. This is set in my other fic, Lost At Sea, and I encourage everyone to read it first, since this one would not make much sense without knowing the context.

First rays of sunlight hit the surface of Fernando's eyelids, easing him slowly into awareness, until he is fully aware of all the commotion that seems so distant and the steady breathing at his side. His neck does a quiet crack when he shifts to look more closely and reassure himself that they are, indeed, safe. It has long become a habit he has come strangely accustomed to.

At his side, Silva, bathed in the soft tones of the earliest rays of sunshine, sleeping soundly. Dreaming, perhaps, of a different life, or a different death.

Fernando feels his toes shiver with frostbite and unconsciously edges closer towards Silva, if only slightly. He is still hesitant of whether he should trust Silva completely now after everything that had happened. A part of him ignites with the primitive tick to run away and hide as soon as he sees the dried blood that maims the ends of Silva's hair all throughout, but Fernando was never too keen on listening to his common sense. He has a heart too big for his body that aches with emotions for everything and everyone, and Silva falls into the category of those who he holds closest to it. He may have always been miles closer to Villa than to Fernando, yet he feels an odd sense of kinship with him now that his motherland is all but a faint dream. Even the wet ground overcome with moss and greenery doesn't compare to the ground he knows so very well from home.

It is as if they truly are in a different world from their own, and though he dreads the idea, he doesn't deem it completely impossible. Villa would have glared at him disapprovingly, saying it is only a matter of time before they figure a way to get out of here. If he closes his eyes shut tightly enough, he can almost see the way his hat would edge to fall of his face but never quite, his sunkissed cheeks adorned with freckles, and the lopsided smirk that accompanied it. It was never a wonder that Silva fell head over heels for him, and that Villa loved him in return.

In his day, Silva was the brightest star their town had ever seen, always in everybody's business, first to pick a fight and last to back out of it, which may have been a reason why Villa took a liking to him in the first place. They were perfect for each other, and yet the world deemed them to be torn apart from each other, and to suffer in perhaps two different variations of hell.

It has been long since Fernando believed in fate. It would have perhaps been easier to justify everything that has happened to them thus far as fate's deed, yet he cannot help but feel it doesn't do justice to Villa's sacrifice.

Silva begins to stir awake under the weight of Fernando's arm, shivering faintly. Fernando feels his grasp on his forearm, bony fingers that hold him with much more force than could be expected, as Silva's chest begins to rise and fall rapidly.

"Shh, you're okay. We're okay." Fernando whispers, completely still in spite of the gutwrenching feeling that one small mishap could cause Silva to lose it completely. "It's me. Fernando."

Silva's grasp at his arm loosens, if only slightly. "I thought..." the hoarse sound of Silva's voice fills the space around them, causing Fernando's curiosity to pique.

"It's alright." Fernando loosens his arm out of Silva's hold to instead paint invisible circles at his side, encouraging him to continue. "You can tell me everything, you know? It's not like I'm going to tell anyone."

A weak chuckle falls out of Silva's lips, a sound as rare as any, and as heartwarming. Silva exhales heavily as though all the world was captured inside his lungs and it is only with mighty force that he can begin to let it escape at all.

"I thought I was dead." Silva says quietly, searching for Fernando's hand to hold it with his own, "I thought he had finally come for me and I was back in his arms, as though nothing had changed at all."

Silence.

"I thought I was back in our bed, waking up to the smell of freshly picked fruit and his cologne." Silva wipes away the tears that begin to fall down his cheeks, looking down to avoid Fernando's stare. "I thought, foolishly, that I wouldn't have to go through this anymore."

"Silva, I--"

"How could you do this, Fernando? How could you live for so very long without a single guarantee that either of us survived?" Silva's blurry gaze meets Fernando's own as he bites down harshly on his lip, "How could you live with losing Villa?"

"I'm not sure I ever did cope." Fernando's hand seeks Silva's face to brush away the blood, sweat and tears that paint it, "I repressed it so much that I thought the cold had killed it. I buried those feelings and never looked back. I was not... myself."

Silva furrows his eyebrows, "I don't think I could ever do that... Forget. There is simply too much to be remembered in life, I'm not even sure death could take these memories away from me."

Fernando cups Silva's cheek, shivering as he is much more exposed to the cold now that most of the furs and skins in their posession keep Silva warm. The first clouds begin to show on the otherwise calm sky, as birds start chirping from somewhere distant, somewhere that is not for him.

Perhaps he is destined to die here, for he sees no other ending to his story in this unnervingly mysterious place. Not for his sake but for Silva, he keeps on hoping, but how much can a heart endure until it collapses, once and for all?

~

"You should get more rest, Silva. It would do you good."

Silva smiles gently, the motion palpable underneath Fernando's fingertips, "I am forever restless, Nando. I fear I think too much so my mind cannot begin to catch up with me, and so I will never rest again."

~

"Daniel has brought a basin of water, you know?" Fernando says softly, unmoved by the quiet snort that comes from Silva, "It's cold, and I wouldn't be able to bathe you in here, but perhaps I could wash your hair for you."

Silva's brow furrows, as it always does upon a moment of anxious consideration. Fernando sees Silva's fingers fidgeting in his lap, sharp fingernails constantly threatening to make small cuts that wouldn't heal easily in such temperature. Fernando couldn't stop him even if he tried.

Silva touches the ends of his hair with reverence, "And why should you do that?"

An uncomfortable silence falls around them as Silva seeks the emotions that flicker in Fernando's eyes, to read and decipher them for himself. He wouldn't admit it, but it hurts Fernando deeply to see Silva so wary of him, so unlike how comfortable they used to be around each other in the days that are now long gone.

Fernando swallows his sorrows harshly down his throat and sighs. "Because I care, Silva." he tells him, gaze unfaltering, "I promised you I would help you and I intend to keep that promise, with each little step it takes."

~

Fernando whispers, "Please, let me help you."

There is but mere silence around them, and nothing else.

~

Particles of blood that has long dried fall off Silva's hair to instead briefly maim Fernando's hand, the prettiest picture of the dirtiest kind of red imaginable. Truly, an extract from an artist's most shameful dreams, ones in which he paints the whole world using blood, and blood only.

"I never knew I could miss it so much... My old life." Silva whispers, stumbling on the syllables that fall off his tongue with unease, "Until it was taken away from me."

Ah, but who would have known that the blood of the ones we love appears to shine the brightest?

Fernando chokes on a sob as he speaks, "Can you tell me a happy memory, Silva? Could you try?"

Silva's teeth worry his lower lip as seconds upon seconds pass, for what truly feels like hours. It is not because of the cold that he shivers.

~

Fernando's fingers run through Silva's hair with utmost care as he awaits an answer which may never come, for it was foolish of him to ever expect something like that of Silva. He watches Silva's feeble arms raise and sag as he inhales sharply.

"It was the morrow of my twenty-fifth birthday," Silva begins, voice surprisingly steady, though the gentleness with which he shivers betrays him, "Villa and I had spent the entire day at home, doing nothing in particular, having just come back from a long and tiring voyage."

Silva's eyes begin to fill with tears though the smile on his face doesn't falter. It would be a hard thing indeed not to smile at the very thought of the life him and Villa had shared together, the memories which Silva can hold onto even during the darkest of nights. It is almost like home, as though Villa's spirit was right there with them. Silva could hardly ever keep a smile off his face in the mere presence of their captain, his lover and most trusted companion.

"Villa had run me a bath and filled it with all kinds of flowers. Rose petals, daisies, gentle stargazers and lillies; You name it. It was... kind of ridiculous, really." The word rolls of his tongue as if he had truly forgotten the meaning of it, the feeling of being carefree and of laughter. Fernando struggles to keep a small smile on his face. "I had told him it was so unlike him to wander around the town and God knows where in search of some folly flowers, but he hadn't said a word."

Silva startles as Fernando puts his hands momentarily in the basin of water, cold hands resuming their ministrations on his scalp, "Yes... It was perfect, just as he had wanted it. He always told me I deserved the best, and I tried my hardest to believe him."

Silva leans his head back slightly, comfortable enough to give Fernando easier access to wash his hair, which Fernando revels in. Silva's story, however surreal at the times they have found themselves in, has him feeling an odd kind of warmth inside, one he has terribly missed.

"He knelt at my side and told me he would ask my mother for my hand in marriage." Silva chuckles, "He never did, obviously. She would surely have beheaded him for it... It was the thought that counted."

"Would you?" Fernando asks, earning himself a confused glare from Silva, "...Take his hand in marriage, if given the real opportunity?"

"Sweet Fernando," Silva's hand seeks to cup his cheek just as Fernando had done to him before, as a faint tear rolls down his face, "I would have gone to the ends of the Earth and back for Villa then, and I would gladly do so now."

~

An odd wave of warmth reverberates through the air. Fernando begins to accept that perhaps not all that is of the past is lost. Things have changed, for better and for worse, and time has not been kind in the slightest, but the world still carries the resemblance of the life he longs to live again.

"I often wonder where he dwells now, whether he ever found peace or if his soul is at sea forever never to find rest, and it pains me to think that he did." Silva's cheast heaves in a breath, "I then think of moments like such, and it heals me to remember him smiling, so fair and alive."

Silva smiling ingites a spark inside Fernando, a determination to do better and to seek to live this amalgamation of his former life to its fullest. It is folly, perhaps, but it is the most alive he has felt in months.

"Thank you, Silva." Fernando tells him, a hand seeking his own in a weak grasp that portrays much more than any of his feeble words ever could, "Thank you for telling me. It means more to me than you could ever imagine."

If Silva is mildly confused, he doesn't let it be shown. His face begins to regain color and somehow, Fernando doesn't feel as afraid anymore.

No...

Perhaps there is hope yet in this terrible, terrible world.

~

_Og eg gloymi mína óró_

(I let go of all my troubles)

_Minnist aftur mína eydnu_

(I forget my restlessness)

_Einki kann toga meg frá tær nú_

(Nothing can pull me away from you)

_Eingin kann elska meg sum tú_

** _(No one can love me like you do)_ **

**Author's Note:**

> This is perhaps the most set-indulgent fic I have ever written. My last entry I plan for a long time for the football fandom. These characters have gone out of hand so much the only thing connecting them to the people is the name and appearance.
> 
> As always, thank you to Eivør for the title, the closing paragraph and tremendous amounts of inspiration. I will love you always.


End file.
